This is a musical journey into hell. Starting with 7 seconds of spin then spinning out of control, ending with the bombs falling on Babylon.
Based on just one 7 second sample from a George W
Bush speech where he says "We've had no evidence that Saddam
Hussain was involved in September 11th". Then treated with a
variety of granular effects in Reaktor
the various takes layered and mastered in Tracktion.
No synths or other sounds involved every sound, tonal
and non tonal is derived from that one sample of Bush's voice treated
in various ways - I never realised he could sound so musical!
This is a piece made with Native Instruments Massive to show off it's gentler side.
I started work on these in the aftershock of the Asian tsunami. Although not originally intended as one piece I feel they form counterparts so keep them together. Composed using a limited palette of sounds (mostly with a haunting voicelike quality) and with a restricted range of expression - they express emotion through their subtlety of tonal variation rather than through grand gesture.
Instruments - Zarg Solaris 3 - Mastered in Tracktion 2 using Flatblaster 2 (from NI Reaktor 5)
Transformation struggling to make music with a broken hand then making that struggle into music. Like musical Raku - the flaws help bring it to life. "Insects" courtesy of DFX Transverb.
A
dada piece based on an excerpt from a reading and lecture by Anselm
Hollo; focusing on his early years and the historical movement and
influence of dada, recorded by the Jack
Kerouac
School
of
Disembodied Poetics.
There are two vocal sample based tracks
- each resonating with but offset from the other. I've tried to
preserve one of the tracks intact and mirrored it with a Grainstates
track offset a few bars. I love Hollo's voice and delivery and didn't
want to mess too much with that. Strangely I recorded the ambient
background and Pianoish bit first and was pleased to find that when I
edited and trimmed the section of his lecture I wanted to use (which
is about an hour long in total) it fitted remarkably well. I thought
it was more in keeping with Dada approaches and "found"
sounds to do it this reversed way than to simply follow the speech
patterns in the music.
Made with Tracktion and several
Reaktor ensembles.
Piano(ish) sounds - Amphitryon
Bleeps,
twangs and background ambience - Twanger (2 tracks)
Processed
vocal sample - Grainstates FX
Mastering Flatblaster
A conversation between a Melancholic piano and Spektral Delay.
Sort of jazzy Reaktoria - saxlike solo built up over a kind of smudged drum-n-bass-ish texture.
Ten Bagatelles 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
This
is a series of ten short sketches made while playing around with DFX
Transverb
and
making patches.
Each piece uses a different patch and the mood is set by my response
to the patch. They are intended as musical conversations between
myself and transverb so they have a loosely contrapuntal form. Each
piece is one minute long.
When I paint I tend not to use
frames or regular edges and I wanted each piece to be similar in that
each piece has no clearly defined beginning or ending using standard
musical conventions like fade ins/outs, intros or conclusions
music without frames. I just set EnergyXT
to record for a minute and with some even began playing before
pressing record and most just cut off when it gets to the end of the
minute. Think of them as if you are just catching a snapshot of a
conversation between two people as you walk past them.
They
could even be looped to continue playing indefinitely.
This
is a piece in the vein of "Donut" - another DADA inspired
piece using found samples of a speech treated using Reaktor's
granular effects and built up into layers. As before the aim was to
interact musically with the speech patterns and content but without
intentionally writing a "backing track" - rather the
musical elements were created seperately and fitted afterwards based
largely on meter.
Although
originally intended as a satirical piece I found myself captivated by
this woman's little quirks of speech - which the granular layers pick
out and accentuate - and although it has a funny and absurd side to
it I get a real feeling of poignancy and sadness from it too. A
homage to days that never were.
More pretty moody stuff
Two one minute long tone poems based on impressions of the great semi-autobiographical novel by Herman Hesse.
Almost "pretty" compared to everything else here :) Just improvising to one of Harm Vissers lovely physically modelled patches for Tassman 4 "Steel string"
Also improvised using one of Harm Vissers patches for Tassman a clarinet (clarinet 2) I found to my delight that this patch exhibits some seriously non-linear behaviour when pushed so I pushed it a lot and got some wonderful bloops and blurps as well as some very non-clarinet like sounds and a few extremely loud and nasty noises too so watch your speakers!
TimeCloud - 1
Nothing much happening here this is all about being, not doing. Composed using a semi algorithmic approach.
3 more minimalistic (self-similar) algorithmic pieces - each 20 minutes long.
Composed in a semi-trance state using Tassman 4 and just letting go playing a repetitive phrase with my left hand and improvising around it with the right creating resonances, harmonics and feedback along the way.
I made this a while back and just came across it again I cant remember what I used for this but I think it was something from Reaktor.
Matrix trilogy Machine City I can still see the light Endgame
These are not based on the whole trilogy but on the sequence near the end where Neo and Trinity are searching for the Machine City made using single presets from EVE
A galaxy in a grain of sand
Miles beyond Rachels theme Verklarte Nachte Various demos
All just sketches and demos made while making presets for a new soundbank for Dash Signature EVE
Henry Cow inspired guitar chaos
Synth and effects Presets
Augur - Prophecy bank 1
Presets made in collaboration with Midiworks for the new freeware Prophet VS clone AUGUR by Antti
DASH Signature EVE
Key S Tones. 50 presets; mainly classic piano and keyboard sounds based on a limited sample palette from the default soundset. In bnk and fxb formats.
Miles Beyond. 50 presets; based largely on the HQFS1 soundset but mixed with the default soundset, concentrating mainly on pad, plucked and fx sounds, many influenced by Miles Davis and Mahavishnu Orchestra textures. Note this is an updated version of the first HQFS1 preset bank I made a while back. In bnk and fxb formats.
DFX Transverb 3 banks 1 2 3
Made for Smart Electronix amazing delay-buffer effect from the Super destroy Effects suite. This is one of my favourite effects
Modelonia - Hybrids
Presets for the physical modelling instrument Modelonia by DASH Signature
FXPansion Orca - Killa Wails
Presets for FXPansions gutsy experimental monosynth Orca. These are numbered to follow on from the main bank so just drop them in the presets folder.
XOXOS Steam - ooops I did it (again)!
Some pretty messed up sounding presets for XOXOS' great Fizmo inspired creation, Steam.
Reaktor Ensembles
An
updated and completely overhauled version. It's still based on an
original Reaktor 3 ensemble by David Hobson (not the Signature
version) but now has a brand new R5 interface and some extra features
courtesy of the hugely talented Donovan Stringer as well as an
updated bank of 128 patches - about half from the original (though
some further edited to take advantage of Reaktor 4 and 5's unison
features) and the rest by myself. Donovan has also started a second
bank and I will be adding more when I get a chance. There is now a
new delay and filter unit (borrowed from Kaleidon) which adds much
more flexibility and a smoother sound to the patches and Donovan has
also added an Overdrive section that can be turned on or off as
required, which really adds extra bite to many of the sounds (though
use with caution)
This is a very flexible synth that can
create sounds ranging from classic analog phatness to huge
pads/soundscapes to spaced out EMS Synthi on steroids type sounds.
Endless modulation possibilities and great fun though very deep
too.
As this is such a complex beast the new gui has a lot of
user friendly features to help tame it - full tooltips, clearer
layout, seperate randomising scopes for synth and effects, a
userguide for the modulation matrix (which is now on panel B) and
tooltips showing assignments, switchable interface for Oscs, filters
and LFO's etc
This isn't an original creation but it's a mod of the original Reaktor 3 Wilderbeast by David Hobson (not the Signature version) with a new GUI by Donovan Stringer and myself and a full bank of 128 patches - about half from the original (though some further edited to take advantage of Reaktor 4 and 5's unison features) and the rest by myself. I think this is a very flexible synth that can create sounds ranging from classic analog phatness to huge pads/soundscapes to spaced out EMS Synthi like weirdness. Endless modulation possibilities and great fun though very deep too.
Glitchy and Scratchy meet Theramin and Mash it up!
MetaToy
2 is based on an old R3 ensemble but rebuilt with new GUI, patches etc.
It's capable of generating similar visuals to Metaphysical Function but
unlike MF is not designed to just run and generate ambient sounds - you
create your own sounds and visuals by scratching on the screen and/or
using your midi keyboard (I tend to use both at once, mouse in one hand
and midi keyboard with the other). The filter is also XY controllable.
This
is a very expressive instrument and even very tiny subtle movements can
radically shift the sound - and also just holding the mouse in one
place can generate variations of pattern and sound for many patches. On
the other hand wildly scratching around with the mouse can create sonic
mayhem (watch the speakers though). So try everything - its made to be
played with!
The sound can be a bit like MF but its mainly
generated by pitchshifting and filtering and doesn't incorporate
samples so it's probably more suited to whacked out space type sound
effects and scratchy tape fx sounds.
Stephen Wey
2007